Souris River engulfs Minot, North Dakota

[marmar]

The Souris River has slowly overtaken roads, yards and entire neighbourhoods in Minot but in the next two days the waterway is expected to roar through the North Dakota city.

Officials in the state's fourth-largest city said they have done all they can to protect critical infrastructure from the rising river as it heads toward a record flood.

Mayor Curt Zimbelman said dikes have been raised as much as possible around the city's sewer lift station and can't be raised any higher. The city is confident the water treatment plant is protected.

"We need to hope that they hold," Zimbelman said. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/06/24/mb-minot-flood-souris-river-north-dakota.html

[MineralMan]

1. The saddest thing about this is that

flood control dams were installed upstream to control this small river. The confidence those instilled in both residents of Minot and in officials, caused the flood insurance requirements in Minot to be relaxed, and caused many, many residents to drop their flood insurance coverage.

As it turned out, the dams have been forced by excessive rains to pass water out of the impoundments, which has made this flooding much worse than it might have been. Now, without flood insurance, many homeowners and businesses will be uninsured for the flooding.

A chain of errors, misunderstandings, and a flood control design that did not anticipate current conditions will be the ruin of many people in Minot.

Very sad business. I hope there's ample assistance in this disaster from FEMA and other government agencies.

The New York Times covered this. Link below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/us/24flood.html

[Springer9]

2. Trying to stuff 10 lbs of crap into a 5 lb sack

All the "flood control" levees, embankments and dams just end up making matters worse. There is a reason they call them flood plains.

From Twitter:
TWCBreaking TWC Breaking
by BreakingNews
Souris River at #Minot now at its previous record crest (1558') from Jan. 1, 1881. Expected to rise ANOTHER 6.5' by late Sat/early Sun.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.